Erasure's 'Total Pop!' collection has been featured in a holiday gifts round-up of the best box-sets by the highly influential New York Times...

The first page of this box’s booklet reprints the classified ad — “Versatile voice wanted” — that brought Andy Bell to Vince Clarke, who was then fresh off success as part of Depeche Mode and Yaz. Together, they’ve made buoyant, exuberant, romantic electronic-pop ever since. Mr. Clarke is a wizard, consistently wrenching new meaning from the same tool kit. And, as heard plainly on the crisply remastered versions of 40 of the band’s songs here, Mr. Bell is, inadvertently, one of the great British soul singers, despite the persistently optimistic tone in his voice. The DVD features a slew of vintage BBC performances (No “Oh L’Amour,” though) that show the band’s central contrast. Mr. Bell’s outfits get loopier as the band gets bigger. But as the years pass, Mr. Clarke remains unchanged, standing grimly aside Mr. Bell and playing an instrument mutely: guitar, synthesizer, accordion.

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UK station Absolute Radio are running a poll to decide the ultimate Song of the Decade. Every track that’s appeared in the Top 75 of the Official UK Chart since the turn of the millennium is eligible and that means that there are no less than NINE tracks by Erasure included (Breathe, Don't Say You Love Me, Freedom, Here I Go Impossible Again, I Could Fall In Love With You, Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me), Oh L'Amour, Solsbury Hill and Sunday Girl). You will need to sign up to vote and you can only vote for each song once, but you can vote for as many songs as you like so why not vote for all nine!

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Vince and Andy recently met David Hockney at the artist's recent opening at the Pace Wildenstein Galleries in New York...

Andy Bell has done an interview with The Pink Paper about the reissue of The Innocents. It's a really nice interview and touches on all sorts of subjects including obsessive fans, Andy's solo work, New York, the new Erasure album and much more besides...

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Due to production deadlines the US release date for the 21st anniversary edition of The Innocents has changed to December 8th.

Andy Bell will be DJing at Wierd in New York City tomorrow night (November 4th) in a night billed as 'Dark Wave, New Wave and A Little Respect'.

Wierd will take place at Home Sweet Home, 31 Chrystie Street (just below Delancey Street). Doors open at 10pm, $5 admission before 1am.

The night also has a FACEBOOK page for more information.

Vince Clarke and Andy Bell have wrapped their NYC writing sessions for the time being. Vince and Andy are very happy with the work they have done so far and will continue working on the ideas with a view to starting recording in the New Year.

Here are a couple of images from their recent sessions...